stranded // tom holland

~ ch. 22 ~

Andy
December 29th, 2019
UK

   My flight landed and I was in an uber headed for my hotel. It was 10am here, I hadn't gotten much sleep on the flight so I was exhausted. Christmas with Ro was great, I even got the courage to call my parents, it went well. Now I talk with my mom every other day.

   Ro was still in New York, I was here to finally move on. I had been talking about this with my therapist for the last 4 sessions, I finally worked up the guts to do this, my final step in moving on from what happened on that island. Tom was having a New Years banquet and I was attending, my ticket was under Ro's name and her boss got me in as a favor. All I needed to do was see him, explain my feelings and let go of them after. Then, I never had to see or think of Tom again.

   New imessage from Tom
Good morning, Andy. I miss you. I hope you're doing okay. I really do. Have a good day, I know you deserve it and everything. Xx.

   I rolled my eyes and closed my phone, taking a deep breath and counting to 10. It was an exercise that my therapist and I came up with to help with my anxiety. I was no longer on medication, which made feel better but sleeping was hard again. She told me that if I needed to, I could take one everyday if needed while on this trip. They were ready to go in my purse.

   "Thank you so much." I tipped the uber driver and got out, he helped with my luggage and I walked inside the hotel with my bags. I checked in, made it to my hotel room and hit the bed. I never slept so good in my life. Not one dream, no nightmare, just pure blissful sleep. I woke up around 3am, I opened the curtains to see the small city. I pulled out my phone and took a picture to add to my story. Captioned: Moving on and moving up.

   I was posting regularly again, which was nice, apart from the thousands of people that were still trying to get into my business. As for work.. I was an online writer, ghost writing for people and writing papers for students. It was decent money, enough to hold me up and I saved enough to take this trip. I originally started saving to pay off my medical bills but by the time I was ready to make my first payment.. all of them were paid off. It wasn't hard to guess who did that.

   I was grateful, he definitely had the money to spare and it made things a lot less stressful for me. Maybe that was one of Tom's ways of moving on or making amends.

TomDecember 29th, 2019

   "She's here, mate. In the damn UK!" I was facetiming with Harrison, he was away on holiday. "What do I do?"

   "Have you called her? Or texted? Asked to see her?"

   "No.."

   "Well, fuck. There's your problem, mate."

   "I don't know what I would say. What do I even say? She hates me, she probably won't even answer anyway. She never does."

   "There's no point in not trying."